SummerBee

Seems to me that this drunk in public/at home alcohol problem for the girls is a relatively new one. I dont think ladies were drunk in night clubs (or their front rooms)forty years ago. It seems to have manifested itself very recently. Men, I know have always partaken, but, I really think this modern drinking for females is very new. My 78 year old mum says women didnt drink let alone get plastered when they were. 'courting'. That old way sounds absolutely perfect to me. Even us ladies that dont go out on the town, have a massive problem tovme. Any thoughts on when and how we (ladies) "chose" the downward spiral??

PennyLane76

I certainly saw a lot of drunk women out and about 30 years ago, so not sure about that. (Including me) I do think the incidence of women being alcoholic has risen though, maybe at home drinkers, not sure.

BrendaChenowyth

I can only say for myself that when I got in to drinking it was to be cool. I remember two ladies on Mtv's The Real World drinking Kahlua and milk and that was the first thing I drank, cause they were cool so it was cool. You saw other women doing it and having fun. Never in clubs, just at home and on tv.

SummerBee

I saw that too as a fifty + year old. I was more thinking of the generation above. Men took girls out to the cinema etc. Girls didnt get drunk did they, it would probably have been frowned upon.
We seem to have normalised 'mummy wine time' and 'end of the day drinks'. I just can't work out when it became acceptable ??

Anna

This book has a lot of answers:

Johnston, Ann Dowsett Drink: The Intimate Relationship Between Women And Alcohol

entropy1964

I graduated from Uni in 1987. Binge drinking,and drugging, was huge for both sexes. I entered the tech industry in silicon valley and woman drank plenty. I believe with work equality came drink equality to some degree.

The wine culture for women seemed to parallel the book club culture and the bunco culture. Wasn't really part of that scene. The wine culture seemed to 'normalize' drinking for stay home moms. I went to some play groups where the women were drinking (I ironically was not) but not getting smashed.

I dunno. The area I live in now is much more temperate than California. I think it's hard to make generalizations but women are definitely gaining on men in the abusive drinking dept.

sugarbear1

Men are more likely to become alcoholic, women have gotten out of control for many years, we just have more people and technology today.

It's not about how often or how much we drink....can you live without drinking??

Forward12

I'm sure there's been alcoholic women just as long as men, perhaps it was just kept more secretive in the past.

Nonsensical

This reminded me of something and I decided to post it here....

About 10 or 12 years ago I was making an(other) attempt at getting sober and I went to an AA Speaker meeting. Fairly big meeting, probably 60 or 70 in attendance. I sat in the back, as I usually did. The speaker was a local woman who had been sober for a couple of years. She told her drunk history, which included stories about going out to bars and getting hammered.

One night she was out with friends and they wanted to leave, but she wanted to stay. She refused to leave with her friends even though they were her ride home. She had been chatting with a group of strangers, young men she had never met before. They agreed to give her a ride home, so she stayed and partied with them when her friends left. On the trip home she was sexually assaulted, multiple times.

As shocking as that was, it was nothing compared to what I saw after she said it. From my vantage point in the back row I saw nearly every woman in the room silently nod as if to say, "Yes, I know what you mean. That happened to me, too."

I'll never forget that.

Ruby2

I don't think it's a new phenomenon. I was a history major in college and also read a lot of other stuff. When I read what you had written I instantly thought "gin mills" and old pamphlet drawings showing women "in their cups." English artist William Hogarth made two prints back in 1751 called "Beer Street" and "Gin Lane" depicting men and women drunk. Gin was considered a huge problem leading to child deaths, neglect, etc etc.

And that entire 1966 Rolling Stones song "Mother's Little Helper" is about valium and addiction.

I didn't mean to go on the history lesson. It isn't a recent problem. Anytime someone wants to celebrate or run away from misery, there is alcohol or pills. Pondering how and why didn't work for me. I just had to accept.

MLD51

Sadly - this is fairly common among women who drink out in bars. (Sexual assault). It never happened to me, but it sure could have. I'm lucky.

I think there have always been plenty of women who are alcoholic or abuse alcohol. They just kept it secret because it wasn't socially acceptable - "nice ladies don't get drunk." My guess is that started changing with the women's rights movement. As more and more women went into the workforce, and started asserting themselves as equal to men, they started feeling less like they had to hide it. Plus - in the working world, if you want to hang with the guys, a lot of times drinking goes with that if you want to truly be seen as a colleague. I could be wrong, but that makes sense to me, and I was there to see it.

Della1968

Wasn't forty years ago the disco era? I think it's always been there but with technology and social media being what it is we are more exposed to it.

SnazzyDresser

I attribute it largely to the 80s "wanna have fun" movement spearheaded by pop singer Cyndi Lauper.